Playoff Prospectus

World Series (and Postseason) Recap

You could be forgiven for thinking this was a boring postseason. I believe I noted once or twice that few of the games lately have been close. The numbers confirm this. If we use the average leverage index of each game and then average all those games together, we find that the average leverage index of this year's postseason was but 0.97; last year's postseason games had an average leverage of 1.01. For the Giants, the difference between this year's championship path and the 2010 run is even starker: 1.12 two years ago, 0.78 this year. To put that into perspective, 0.78 is roughly the leverage for the batter who hits in the bottom of the eighth trailing by four, whereas 1.12 is roughly the leverage for the batter hitting in the top of the seventh of a tie game.

But none of that matters for the Giants, and none of that should matter for us, because we actually got a great postseason. Thirty-seven games, and nearly every single one was interesting for some reason, other than Game Three of the Cardinals/Nationals series. That game was basically worthless. Otherwise, though.

What follows is a ranking of the 37 baseball games we just watched, including a terrifying barrage of GIFs. I wish your browser luck, and I wish us all a 2013 postseason as entertaining as this one was.

33. ALCS Game Four: Tigers 8, Yankees 1
Memorable because: The Tigers so thoroughly dominated the Yankees (and Alex Rodriguez, who popped out in a pinch-hitting appearance during this game) that everybody forgot their flaws and picked them to crush the Giants in the World Series.
aLI: .5615 (31st)

30. NLCS Game One: Cardinals 6, Giants 4
Memorable because: Madison Bumgarner lost his spot in the rotation after a terrible start, setting up the third-act redemption to come.
aLI: .811 (24th)

29. NLCS Game Seven: Giants 9, Cardinals 0
Memorable because: "It started raining all of a sudden, and it was raining so hard—it was raining as hard as it rains in California," said my father, who got soaked with the rest of them.
aLI: .4665 (33rd)

24. NLDS Game One: Reds 5, Giants 2
Memorable because: Brandon Phillips bullet-dodged a tag, came out of nowhere to back up a wild throw to first, and crushed the worst pitch Matt Cain has ever thrown.
aLI: .8485 (23rd)

23. World Series Game Three: Giants 2, Tigers 0
Memorable because: Vogelsong lowered his postseason ERA to 1.09, probably some sort of record or another.
aLI: 1.024 (17th)

19. ALDS Game One: Tigers 3, A's 1
Memorable because: Justin Verlander entered the game with a 5.57 career ERA in the postseason and allowed a leadoff home run to Coco Crisp... and then was about as dominant as he can be, with 20 swinging strikes.
aLI: .9465 (20th)

16. ALDS Game Five: Yankees 3, Orioles 1
Memorable because: Nate McLouth hit a ball that may have scraped the foul pole; a Yankee Stadium usher told the man with the garish jacket that it did, but the umpires concluded it didn't, paving the way for the Yankees to be totally miserable one week later.
aLI: 1.097 (13th)

This is great. Another nit: Number 25 should be Cards v. Braves. The Nationals had the best record in the majors, so no need for them to futz around with the play-in game. Given what came afterward for the Nats, we have to stick on that point of pride.

The way it turned out you wonder if Romo hasn't been throwing 70% sliders to right handers for the last 5 years just so he could throw a fat fastball down the middle of the plate to the reigning AL batting champion in the WS and have him strike looking. That said, I'm guessing Romo intended that pitch to be on the outside corner instead of where it ended up.

The pitch was so fat it turned out being the last type of pitch and location that Cabrera was looking for, and he left his bat motionless on his shoulders. Either blind luck or poetic brilliance on Romo's part.